Shares in Wirecard fall sharply; traders cite concerns about Dubai business partner

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Shares in Wirecard fell more than 13% to their lowest in more than two years on Friday, traders pointing to a tweet about a business partner based in Dubai liquidating as the reason for the sudden sharp drop in afternoon trade.

The tweet on Friday pointed to a May 11 liquidation notice in the newspaper Gulf Today by Al Alam Solution Provider FZ based in Dubai.

In October and December last year, the German payments company said Al Alam Solutions FZ was a routing partner for payment transactions headquartered in Dubai. https://bit.ly/368ZOpR

Reuters was not able to verify if they are the same company.

An official at Gulf Today confirmed the publication of the liquidation notice in its print edition.

Al Alam did not respond to requests for comments by phone and email. Wirecard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shares were down 8.5% at 1521 GMT, the biggest faller on Germany’s blue-chip DAX 30 <.gdaxi> index.

(Reporting by Tom Sims, Hans Seidenstuecker, and Christina Amann in FRANKFURT, Michelle Martin in BERLIN and Thyagaraju Adinarayan in LONDON; Editing by Josephine Mason)